Board help - Freeride or Freestyle? + South Hemisphere boarders, where to buy boards?

Ok, firstly, any Northern Hemisphere riders are free to contribute.

Firstly I need some help with what snowboard to get.

I'm Australian, and have only been to Falls Creek before. Over the past three years have gone down for three days each year... so that gives me 9 days experience, and only ever had one lesson, the standard introductory one.

I'm not really sure how skill levels are determined, but I'd say that it puts me in the 'beginner' category still? I go down blues and greens mostly, and haven't gone into many parks as I enjoy riding / carving a lot, though am curious about some of the parks.

HEIGHT: 6'0
WEIGHT: 70kg I'm pretty lean. Do I need more flex because of this?
SHOE: 9 UK shoe size.
PRICE: up to $300, though cheaper the better. It can be easily upgraded later on.
STYLE:
As for my riding 'style' It's hard to say. All I've done is go down groomed runs in the past, as there are not a whole lot of parks for jumps / rails / jibs when I went to Falls. And no half pipe to be seen. Though I do like carving and sharp turns etc.

Would you guys recommend a Free ride or Free style board? If Free style boards are meant for parks I don't think I would get much use out of it in that sense (as there aren't many at Falls) but are they fun for going down groomed runs? Are Free ride boards really that much better for just going down groomed runs? I don't really stray from the run that often at all. Will I still be able to carve and have a bit of manueverability on a free ride? How limiting are they? (sorry for so many questions, but when I've read descriptions of Freeride/Big Mountain ride style I always think of those crazy guys going down massive slopes and break neck speeds)

I'm a bit confused about whether to go for Freeride / Big Mountain or Freestyle.

Second, to any Southern Hemisphere boarders (or anyone who is familiar with online stores / importing) what are the best sites to order from that ship internationally? Where can some good deals be had for the end of Northern Hemipshere season sales?

You can buy boards from most online retailers although most wont send a lot of brands to Australia. For what its worth I have a few boards for sale that you may be interested in. First one is a sierra reverse crew 159 good cond $150 and the second is a sierra stunt 155 excellent cond (only done 1 run) $100. I am in sydney and can ship them to you for about $40.

I live in Brisbane and recently bought a new board from the US. I bought a Ride berzerker 11/12 for $305 US. I used Price USA to buy the board for me and ship it over. I also did the same with a pair of Rome targas 11/12 for $150.

The total for the board came to $463 US (using a conversion rate of .97) and the total for the bindings came to $247(using a conversion rate of 1). The way they work is that they buy and item that you specify and then are selling you the item as secondhand but in as new condition (so you don't actually get the receipt from the store it was purchased from, just a tax invoice from price usa).

If you don't like that method, there are companies that will supply you with a US shipping address and act as a mail forwarder rather than buying it for you and reselling it to you. One company I was considering which was a mail forwarder that I didn't go with because you had to pay via bank deposit not paypal/credit card like price usa was IPS Parcel. Both seemed to have similar shipping rates and stuff but the payment options for IPS PArcel turned me off them.

Just a some comments on my observations of snowboard prices in Australia VS America:
Prices in Australia are decreasing every season. For example the ride Machete. In 10/11 the rrp was $850, 11/12 the rrp was $779 and in 12/13 the rrp is currently $650. So shops over here are not discounting previous years stuff very much over the current years RRP. The the case of the berzerker, I found the 11/12 model over here discounted to $680 (rrp of $850) and with buying from the USA saved another $200. The 12/13 rrp for a berzerker is $750.

I used Spadeout when finding the cheapest price for my gear. So if you went for say a K2 Raygun (Just for example, but it seems to be considered a decent entry level all mountain board) the cheapest I can see the 11/12 model for is $200 USD so it would probably cost you around $370 all up to get one to Australia.